Employment and mental health of three groups of immigrants to New Zealand

This paper reports findings on employment and mental health from the first phase of a longitudinal study on the settlement of three groups of skilled immigrants to New Zealand: 36 from the People's Republic of China, 36 from India and 35 from South Africa. They were interviewed face-to-face after having been residents of New Zealand for an average of 5 months. A questionnaire collected demographic data and employment related experiences. The mental health instrument used was the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12). The results indicated that migrants' mental health levels were low and independent of their mean number of months residence in New Zealand. Even though unemployment is usually a cause of mental distress, there were no Significant differences between employed and unemployed migrants and also no differences among the three immigrant groups. The lack of difference related to employment success suggests that another source of low mental health - perhaps the difference in motivational factors for migration, as explained by Kunz's (1973) kinetic model of migration - may have been affecting the South Africans who were 83% employed.